On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §564 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: if Adam's sin ours only by imputation, circular 'we sinned in Adam'

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Next he inculcates everywhere that Adam's sin is not ours except by imputation: whence it follows that we did not sin in Adam except by imputation. And yet now he will have Adam's sin imputed to us, because we sinned in Adam. But how did we sin in Adam, if Adam's sin was not ours? Therefore as we first sinned in Adam before his sin was imputed to us, so Adam's sin was first ours before it was imputed to us. How then does he inculcate everywhere that it is not ours except by imputation?

Latin

Deinde passim inculcat peccatum Adami nostrum non esse nisi imputatione: unde sequitur, nos in Adamo non peccasse nisi imputatione. At tamen nunc vult peccatum Adami nobis imputari, quia nos in Adamo peccavimus. Quomodo autem in Adamo peccavimus, si peccatum Adami nostrum non fuit? Ut igitur prius in Adamo peccavimus, quam eius peccatum nobis fuit imputatum, sic prius nostrum fuit Adami peccatum, quam nobis imputaretur. Quomodo ergo passim inculcat nostrum non esse, nisi per imputationem?

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Josué de la Place (Placeus) on the imputation of Adam's first sin: chapters 1 to 12 and 14, and the later disputation up to its chapter on Romans 5:14, from the Latin. The rest is not yet translated.

Josué de la Place (c. 1596–1655), known in Latin as Placeus, was pastor at Nantes and from 1633 professor of theology at the Academy of Saumur, the school of Cameron and Amyraut.

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin argues the distinctive Saumur thesis: Adam's sin reaches his posterity only mediately, through the inherited corruption — never by immediate reckoning of a sin they did not commit. Fellow Reformed theologians rejected the view, but the book remains its classic statement.

Part only: Chapters 1–12 and 14, and the disputation up to Romans 5:14

Datec. 1645–1655 AD (written after the 1645 Synod of Charenton, and read in draft by Drelincourt by 10 December 1653; printed posthumously at Saumur, 1661; Reformed / Amyraldian circle)

The English is made from the 1661 Saumur Latin of chapters 1 to 12 and 14 and part of the later disputation. No earlier English was copied.

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Translated from Latin (Saumur 1661) (Latin)
Also checked Text extract of Caput Primum (Latin)
Also checked machine-read text of the 1661 volume (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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